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Photo tips

Photo tips

Practical tips to take nice portraits

A picture doesn't look good by itself. You would be very lucky if you just framed and clicked and had an amazing picture. You need to work your picture and think of ways that would make it look good. An image is imagine and composed before it is taken.

‧ Portraits don't have to be always straight on. Use different angles, shoot from the sides, from below (under a table for example) or from high up (use straircases)

‧ Framing through things can be a good idea (a gate, a bin, an actual frame, etc)

‧ Use props. You can even hide a subject behind a prop. A prop should be related to the story and the person.

‧ When you don't have any element to help the picture look good, and when the settings isn't nice, just work with the light and expressions. And you could frame tight.

‧ Look at the light. If it's coming from above, ask the subject to look up to catch the light. If there's a special light, such as a coloured light, take advantage of it and feature it in your photo.

‧ If the subject is not very comfortable in front of the camera, ask them to do something, to move, to use their hands, and capture their natural movement.

Picture size and camera settings

Photos must be of print quality. Before taking pictures, check your camera settings. Picture size should be set on large or high, not small or medium.

Once you have uploaded your pictures to your desktop, you can check that they have an appropriate size by clicking right > properties. The size should be minimum 1.5MB and maximum 6MB.

Keep the original high resolution version on your desktop in case we need them for publication. Then resize a copy of the images to between 1.8MB to 2MB so that you can upload it on the Heritage Detectives website when you submit your report.